European refugee crisis (The scale of migration (Syrian asylum…

Syrian asylum applications: over 1 million Syrians have arrived in Europe seeking asylum, which is roughly 10% of those who have fled Syria.

Sweden: 110,000

Hungary: 76,000

Austria, 43,000

Germany: 450,000

The Netherlands: 33,000

Belgium: 17,000

UK: 10,000

About 50% are men, 20% are women and 30% are children

13.5 million Syrians are in need of humanitarian assistance

Push and pull factors

Push

War in Syria

Chemical weapons

Immediate threats to life

Poor conditions in neighbouring countries

Therefore, Europe is the best option

Few safe places to live in the surrounding area.

EG Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon

Fencing of Israel's border prevents migrants settling there.

Poverty

Insufficient humanitarian aid to support everybody

Pull

Possibilty of better jobs

Access to social services

Prospect of a better future

The spread of social media enables people even in remote areas of Syria to discover the potential benefits of Europe.

Positive and negative impacts at source

Positives

Boost of labour force

German labour gap means that migrants in MINT(mathematics, information technology, natural sciences and technology) are encouraged into the country, 800,000 migrants in 2016 alone.

Solution to ageing population

European countries like Germany, Italy and Spain suffer from a low birth rate and would want some migrants to make up for the ageing population. Germany currently has a population of about 81.3m, which is expected to decrease to 70.8m in 2060, so they could use some migrants.

Negatives

Dangerous Migrant Routes

Migrants are travelling through the Mediterranean on small overcrowded boats that are very prone to sinking. In April 2015 alone around 1200 migrants drowned in the ocean.

Not enough space for migrants

In 2015 over 1 million refugees applied for asylum in 2015, while only 250,000 were excepted in all European countries.

Response from receiving countries

Lesbos' response

Refugee boats are rescued daily, placing very large pressure on the reception capacity of the island (3800 people maximum). in 2015 441,081 out of the 747,981 migrants to Greece came from Lesbos. On November 2015 there were 3450 new arrivals per day. This contributed to 50% of the total migration flow

Hungary's response

The prime minister Victor Orban has refused to take the situation seriously and has repeatedly stated that is is "Germany's problem" and has also said that he does not expect Hungarians to live together with Muslims. He has built a fence along the border with Syria and Croatia in order to stop migrants from entering the coutry

Germany's response

Germany's response is to welcome the refugees with a rota system into all of their states based on the tax income and population of said states. There has been however some opposition by several political right wing parties such as AfD (Alternative for Germany) who think that there are too many refugees that are entering the country, leading to protests and violence.